


The Shards of Ash and Stars

by typervoxilations



Series: Kings of the Abyss [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Cambion, Character(s) of Color, Dystopia, Fantasy, Futuristic, M/M, Magic, Male Witches, Mentions of other supernatural creatures, Moderately Slow Build, Naiads, Original Character(s), Original Female Character x Original Male Character, Original Fiction, Original Male Character x Original Male Character, Original Slash, Sirens, Slash, Supernatural Creatures, The vampires don't sparkle, Vampires, Zombies, apocalyptic, fae, mentioned minor character death, world building
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-19
Updated: 2015-08-19
Packaged: 2018-04-15 10:15:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4602942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/typervoxilations/pseuds/typervoxilations
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elias died when the fractures in the universe opened just wide enough for him to glimpse another world through the darkness, when the era of art and rebirth ended.</p>
<p>Inteus was born when the fractures yawned and stretched and swallowed up half the world and then some, the time known as the downfall of the living.</p>
<p>The world is dead, dying, held together by the spider-web-thin netting of magic that still resides somewhere deep, deep down within the earth, but magic is not inexhaustible and already the strain is beginning to show. The supernatural community is bordering extinction, forced deeper into hiding than they have ever been, and humanity has scattered across the changed landscape like the plague.</p>
<p>Elias runs, runs, runs from a conflict from which he knows there is no escape. Inteus runs, runs, runs towards the battle in order to preserve his way of life. Two paths cross and diverge and come back together. Elias must learn how to trust, Inteus must learn how to love, and they both have to dare to hope. Neither of them are perfect, but the jagged edges of their broken souls fit together just fine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Shards of Ash and Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to CMTaylor (dioxazinepurple) because it was only due to reading A Flash of Gold and Fire that I finally got off my lazy ass and did something about this story idea that just wouldn't leave me be.
> 
> [Remake of an original idea, will have some significant differences if you've seen my first attempt]

* * *

_Present Day_ : _New New York,_ 87 A.R.

 

   Inteus grunted as he shoved at the stuck door with entire body weight which, to be honest, wasn't very much; not that it ever had been, but the recent years had reminded him keenly how little supplies there were to go around even among the people who were left - how very little good his magic could do him if he hadn't the energy to use it. The door was rusted on its hinges, and made entirely too much noise for him to be comfortable. The quietest of breaths had him on edge, and he hadn't been comfortable in a very long time. He hadn't even wanted to come back, to stand in these once familiar alleyways, trying to open a once familiar door, but Maeve shivered across from him, jacket worn thin and skin too dry, and he knew he didn't have much of a choice. With one last shove that made his shoulder throb, the door swung open with a heavy, drawn out creaking that made his heart ache. Trying to ignore it, he herded Maeve into the dusty darkness, glancing behind them to make sure they were slipping in unseen, before following suit.

   The door closed behind them and it was like entering a tomb that had lay undisturbed for years.

   He felt as if he could almost smell charred flesh and hear blood curdling screams.

   Inteus picked his way through the semi-darkness, light filtering through the boarded up windows and illuminating the dust motes that came to life and danced in the air as he shuffled around overturned furniture. "How're you holding up?" He rasped over his shoulder, and Maeve sent him a baleful look.

_'Still mute.'_ Her pale, tapered fingers cut silently through the air, nails torn and bloody, bandages around her palms stained pink and red, and the injuries on his own hands ached in sympathy.  _'...still alive.'_ She signed after a pause and Inteus could only offer a wan smile. "Cheerful as always. What would I do without you?" He moved deeper into the empty room, towards a door-frame that looked as if the door had been ripped off its' hinges, and lay on the door somewhere across the bar. "Wait here." And if it had been before, a time he could hardly remember anymore, Maeve might have moved to protest - but now she had neither the voice nor the will to do so, and Inteus didn't know how he felt about that. The 'Employees Only' sign was burnt to a crisp, and only a handful of letters were comprehensible. Looking at the reminders made him feel queasy so he turned away and into the darkness. 

   A snap of his fingers, and a soft blue flame flickered to life around his wrist, curling up his fingers like an old friend, and for a moment the ache in his chest almost pulled his heart apart. Everything had been left the way he remembered it - the way he remembered  _that_  night. The walls and floors were charcoal black, traces of ash still flaking loose as he brushed his knuckles through them. Metal twisted as if in agony, liquefied by intense heat. Shattered glass littering the ground and the windows haphazardly boarded up like the ones out in front. And the tree - only the stump was left, withered and blackened - that sat in the middle of the room like a reminder of how his life all went wrong. 

   "I'm sorry." His voice was a hoarse whisper into the emptiness. " _I'm so_ -" His voice cracked and he fought the urge to fall to his knees and howl out his grief, or punch the wall and have the whole place collapsing down on them.

   Five years and it still hurt justas badly as if it happened yesterday. He felt as if he could be breathing in smoke through crushed ribs, and he was unsteady on his feet as he pushed his way through the memories and tried to think only about the present, only about surviving.

   He had to find a source of water.

_Enchanted Threefold_  had been built in the community - for the community. While the rest of the world shriveled up and tore itself apart, it was supposed to have been a haven for people like them; somewhere in between being human and being hunted. Poisoned waters ran through places that used to be streets, and oceans had become dried cliffs and valleys of a changed landscape but here – here, it was always supposed to have been  _safe,_ behind these walls and wards and closed doors. But the walls were burnt and the wards were crossed out and the doors knocked off their hinges.

   Aedan had a vision for them, and it was that vision that had sunk into Inteus like a fish hook - had reeled him in completely and lowered his guard to the point that he had forgotten that life was a bitch that was always out to get him and had snatched his sense of security away, yanked it from beneath his feet so fast he was winded when hit the ground and by the time he had come back up for air, everything had already changed. Inteus had tried; he had tried so hard to see that vision become a reality - exhausted himself physically and mentally and magically to see it come to fruition. 

   And instead he was standing in the ruins of what would have become  _home_. 

   The bar's kitchen area was almost completely destroyed; what wasn't buried under rubble was scrap metal and bonfire fodder and most of the runes in the cement were mostly already rubbed out or cracked, but by some miracle he realized he would be able to restore them easily. His hands were already injured, and it wasn't difficult to coax the blood to flow again. The patterns had long been memorized, but it felt strange for him to be using blood magic again, even as he retraced and connected the mismatched old runes. It wasn't as flashy as fire, but it did its job - he turned the rusty faucet and a steady stream of clear water began to flow. 

   Maeve had claimed a corner behind the bar when Inteus returned and they sat in relative silence as he hauled the cracked bucket over to her; she made gestures of protest when he dipped his hands into the water but he stilled her with a look. "Save it." He muttered. "You need your hands more than I do mine." There was a glimmer of emotion in her eyes -  _gratefulness, desperation_  - but he averted his eyes and refused to think about what it could have been as he cupped his hands and transferred the water from the bucket over her legs. He pretended not to hear the sigh of relief that passed through her lips, nor notice the way she sagged slightly in relief as the pain alleviated.  _'That should be enough.'_  Inteus frowned. "Are you sure? We can stay here for the night. It's just as safe as-" Maeve shook her head.  _'I'll be fine. The apartment should be an easier place to barricade ourselves in.’_ He almost missed the way she glanced over his shoulder. It was a quick, fleeting glance, but Inteus caught her eyes flickering to the soot-stained doorway and he realized she wanted to keep moving for his sake more than her own. 

   His words caught in his throat and he moved to help her stand in lieu of a spoken gratitude. 

   The apartments were just as they had been left; dustier and shabbier but untouched by anything other than time. The hinges on his door were a little rusty but they weren't anything a little brute force couldn't deal with. Dusk peeked through the broken blinds, light glancing off the grimy surface of old vials and corked bottles. Inteus nodded wordlessly in the direction of the bedroom and Maeve left him to his own devices in the living room - alone with his thoughts.

   Five years, they had been travelling together, had shared the burden of survival - but when it really came down to it they shared it in silence; and not only because one of them was unable to speak. Even if Maeve still had her voice, neither of them had ever been the kind of people who could comfortably express themselves through words.

   Getting people to open up had always been Tsering's gift and Tsering was - 

   Inteus exhaled heavily, pressing the palms of his hands to his eyes, the bandages damp and rough against his eyelids. Bright blue flames danced across his mind's eye and he was quick to jerk his hands away, blinking rapidly as an old, burning fear began to claw its way back to the surface of his consciousness. It occurred to him that he should hurry and reapply the obviously broken wards before anything undesirable surprised them. 

   He moved instinctively rather than consciously and it took him several seconds to realize the chill of the skin beneath his hand, but no pulse beneath the blade of his razor resting on a familiar scar on the throat; the muzzle of a rifle wedged beneath his ribs, digging painfully into some fleshy part of him he had forgotten he still had, but the finger had stilled on the trigger. Grayscale pupils narrowed in wordless disbelief through wild black curls and it felt strange having to tilt his head up to look at someone who wasn't Maeve. 

   "Inteus..."

   "Why're you..."

   They spoke at the same time and Inteus congratulated himself on the steady quality of his voice when his head was spinning.

   The pressure behind the rifle lifted and they came apart slowly; Inteus ruled out the fact that he was hallucinating - _again_ - as his ribs throbbed in protest.

   "Elias, you...."

   Elias pushed the hair out of his face and Inteus reached out hesitantly; he might as well have had all the breath knocked out from him when his fingers closed around the tattered wool of Elias's scarf. "You're real." He muttered in wonder. He had thought about this. All those years ago, he had wondered what it would be like if Elias had ever come back to him. Five years, and he hadn't even changed a bit - it was almost as if he hadn't even left. 

   Except he  _had_.

   Elias might have been able to have seen it coming, and maybe he made the choice not to move - or maybe he had been genuinely taken off guard just as much as Inteus - but Inteus felt the satisfying crack as his fist connected with a face and Elias staggered to the side, looking slightly stunned. "You piece of  _shit_!" Inteus barked, and he barely noticed that Maeve's hands were tight around his upper arms, trying to hold him back - hadn't even realized when she had been there. His hand was bleeding again - scars aching and it felt like he was going to burst into flames. Something bright blue flickered in the corner of his eye and maybe that wasn’t such an impossible thing.

   This was probably not how he imagined their reunion to go, but he wasn't thinking as straight as he wanted to either.

   "Five years-"

   "Inteus-"

   " _Five fucking years-"_

   "Inteus, please-"

   " _Don't you 'Inteus, please' me, you undead sack of bullshit-_ "

   " _Tea!_ "

   Maeve had never attempted to speak aloud ever since losing her ability to speak and the brief, choked caricature of her once lovely voice had brought his words to an abrupt, screeching stop. It seemed to have immediately taken a toll on her and she began gasping for air as her legs gave way and Elias was readily forgotten as Inteus caught her before she could hit the ground.

   "Shit, Maeve, why did you- hold on just-"

   He held her upright, feeling her wheezes rattle her lightweight body even as she began to calm down.

   "You idiot, you're not supposed to-" Maeve covered his mouth with a hand and shook her head.

_'Let him... talk.'_ Her free hand trembled with the effort of spelling out the words, and Inteus glared daggers as if the very thought was offensive to him, directing his murderous glare at Elias - he tried not to think about the frozen deer expression on the other male's face as he pieced together things that he had missed while he was away, about the face he would make when it all fell into place. "I don't want to hear the excuses he's been telling himself." Inteus muttered, but helped Maeve to the empty couch in the living room, a silent gesture for Elias to follow. "How did you even get in here anyways?" Elias blinked sluggishly as he seemed to come back to himself and he raised a hand. Something copper glinted between his fingers – Inteus felt his throat tighten as he recognized it as the spare key he had given away what seemed to have been a lifetime ago.

   "I promised I would guard it with my life." Elias's pale gray gaze was still as unnerving as it had ever been, sending shivers of not-quite-fear down his spine, and Inteus scowled at Elias's ability to still catch him off guard even after all these years.

   "You're not off the hook." He crossed his arms, and would never admit to the flicker of delight when Elias's lips quirked up the tiniest bit.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeaaaaaaaaaah babes, we're gonna be doing this allllll over again so buckle up and get ready for more world building  
> It's a little short but I'm planning on just throwing a couple chapters together later, whoops
> 
> As you can see, there have been some radical changes to the dynamics of the relationships  
> Yay
> 
> Also yes indeed I made that title design all by myself.  
> Cover page is still in the process of being worked on but I'll get there eventually.
> 
> Inteus is canonically the second shortest character at five foot seven (with Tseng being the shortest; five foot four) and Aedan is the tallest at six foot three. Maeve and Elias are more or less the same height, somewhere around five foot eleven or six feet.


End file.
